John

Matt Damon just said The Odyssey made almost three times what The Martian did, and that they needed to cross $1,500,000,000 just to sleep at night. The standard for a “hit” in Hollywood is officially insane now Matt Damon: “The Martian, which I think is the biggest movie that I’ve ever kind of headlined…” “I think The Odyssey is almost made like three times what that made.” “That was a real hit for me. But there’s this other league of these kind of movies that just… I’ve just never…” “We need to cross $1.5 billion to just sleep at night, right? It’s like, what?” “It was great to have it be that successful, but also great given the…”

When I read my first Tom Clancy novel I thought what most dated it, tied it to the ’90s, was its confidence—the belief in experts, the trust in institutions, the faith in technology. I wrote a whole essay about it, I found it so striking. These days, I think what most dates Clancy is how many of his characters are empowered with real responsibility in their early thirties.